You Are Not the Only One

Jessica exhaled slowly, pressing her fingers against the edges of the file like she could steady herself against the weight of what she had just heard.

The Second Coming.

The words didn’t feel real, but the moment Mr. Black said them, something inside her stirred. A memory, not fully formed. A feeling, not fully understood. She looked down at the burned page again, her own handwriting scrawled across the brittle parchment.

“If you’re reading this, you weren’t supposed to remember.”

Her breath felt shallow. She had written this. Not yesterday. Not last year. But before. And that terrified her.

She looked up at Mr. Black. “Explain.”

His eyes held the same infuriating calm. “You already know.”

Jessica’s fingers curled into a fist. “Don’t do that.”

He exhaled through his nose, tilting his head slightly. “Tell me, Jessica. Do you believe in prophecy?”

Jessica let out a sharp, humorless laugh. “I believe in control. I believe in power. I believe in people shaping the world through force, not destiny.”

Mr. Black watched her. “And yet, here you are.”

She clenched her jaw. “I don’t believe in fate.”

“No,” he said quietly. “But you believe in history.”

She went still because that was true. She had spent her life untangling the past, following threads no one else saw, exposing the machinery beneath the surface of power. History was a pattern. It repeated itself. It was rewritten, reshaped. And sometimes, it was erased.

Jessica swallowed hard. “What did I remember?”

Mr. Black took a slow step toward her. “You are the vessel,” he said. “The latest in a line of those before you.”

Jessica felt her pulse in her throat. “A vessel for what?”

His voice was steady, deliberate, “A memory.”

Jessica’s stomach tightened. Not a prophecy. Not a vision. A memory. She knew, even before he said it, what that meant. She licked her lips, trying to keep her voice even. “Whose memory?”

Mr. Black held her gaze. “The one who will return.”

The words sent a cold current through her veins. She shook her head, stepping back. “No.”

“Jessica—”

“No,” she snapped, louder this time. “That’s not possible.”

Mr. Black exhaled. “And yet, you are proof that it is.”

Jessica turned away, pacing toward the far end of the room. The walls felt like they were closing in. The Second Coming. Not a prophecy. Not a belief. A memory. Passed down, stored, preserved. Generation after generation.

Jessica closed her eyes. The ledger in the Vatican archives. The names spanning centuries. Each one a version of her. Each one carrying the same knowledge.

Her breath hitched. She had thought she was an anomaly. An experiment. A mistake. But what if she wasn’t? What if she was a design?

She wanted to scream. Not because it wasn’t true, but because it was. Someone had drawn her life in ink before she’d ever touched a pen.

Her hands trembled. She clenched them into fists. Mr. Black’s voice was quieter now.

“You have lived this before, Jessica. You have carried this before. And every time you got too close…”

She turned sharply, finishing the sentence for him. “I erased myself.”

He nodded once. Her stomach twisted.

“How many times?” she asked, voice hoarse.

Mr. Black hesitated. Then: “At least eight.”

Jessica felt the world tilt beneath her feet. She swallowed hard. “Why now? Why is it waking up again?”

Mr. Black studied her for a long moment. Then, he stepped toward the desk, pulled another file from the drawer. He opened it, slid it toward her. Jessica’s eyes flicked down. Her breath caught. A name. A modern name. Someone alive. Someone real.

Her voice barely came out, “Who is this?”

Mr. Black’s voice was steady. “The next vessel.”

Jessica stared at the picture. Because it was her face. Not a lookalike. Not a coincidence. A perfect copy. Jessica inhaled sharply, stepping back. “No.”

“Jessica—”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m not a vessel. I’m not—”

She stopped. Because she could hear it now. The faintest whisper. Not from the room. From inside her own mind. A voice she didn’t recognize, but one she had always known.

“Remember.”

Jessica’s knees nearly buckled.

Mr. Black watched her, and then he said the words that shattered her world completely. “You are not the only one.”

Jessica closed her eyes, for the first time, she truly felt it. The memories weren’t hers. But they were inside her. And now they were waking up.